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I configured FTP Service/Role on my Windows Server 2008 R2 machine. I am able to connect from the inside, but not from the outside. On the inside I tested using cmd prompt and IE FTP. On the outside, I am testing with FileZilla and IE FTP. From the outside, IE FTP prompts me to enter my username/pwd, but nothing happens. Page eventually times out and I get "Internet Explorer cannot display page". Using FileZilla, I get the following messages. Note FileZilla resolved domain name and authenticates. I did not configure FTP Wirewall Support on the FTP site. I am not sure if I need to do this. I set up basic authentication, non-ssl, not allowing anonymous. I testing with Windows Firewall Turned off and on (I added windows firewall rule for port 21). On my network firewall (Cisco), I added a rule to forward port 21 traffic to FTP Server.

Status: Resolving address of ftp.technologyblends.com
Status: Connecting to 75.149.66.201:21...
Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message...
Response: 220 Microsoft FTP Service
Command: USER *
Response: 331 Password required for *
.
Command: PASS ********
Response: 230 User logged in.
Command: SYST
Response: 215 Windows_NT
Command: FEAT
Response: 211-Extended features supported:
Response: LANG EN*
Response: UTF8
Response: AUTH TLS;TLS-C;SSL;TLS-P;
Response: PBSZ
Response: PROT C;P;
Response: CCC
Response: HOST
Response: SIZE
Response: MDTM
Response: REST STREAM
Response: 211 END
Command: OPTS UTF8 ON
Response: 200 OPTS UTF8 command successful - UTF8 encoding now ON.
Status: Connected
Status: Retrieving directory listing...
Command: PWD
Response: 257 "/" is current directory.
Command: TYPE I
Response: 200 Type set to I.
Command: PASV
Error: Connection timed out
Error: Failed to retrieve directory listing

2 Answers 2

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Try to set your connection to ACTIVE MODE instead of PASV

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  • Nothing seems to work. At this point I am not sure if its on my Network Firewall or something on my FTP Server. While inside the network FTP is working as expected. I just cannot get it to work from the outside. Not sure how to troubleshoot where the problem may be. Thanks for any tips.
    – obautista
    Jan 31, 2011 at 13:00
  • just for your consideration and this only as a comparative scenario, have you considered installing filezilla server instead of using MS ftp?
    – redknight
    Feb 1, 2011 at 19:36
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I understand you have NAT going on and the server has a private address. The most likely cause is you not letting the ephemeral ports through. I think that if you just made a DMZ and let everything through, it would start working. But that's insecure. The better way is to find a way to limit the range of passive ports used and forward that range to your server. Here are some instructions: https://manage.accuwebhosting.com/knowledgebase/2334/How-to-Configure-Passive-Port-Range-for-the-FTP-Service-in-IIS.html . Then forward that same range on the NATing router to the internal IP of your server. The tutorial linked shows 6001-6001, but I recommend that you do something like 60000-61000. The reason being that the "lower" numbers in the thousands get used by other traffic a lot whereas the higher ones tend to remain quiet.

That said, the FTP shim in the NAT should create that port mapping automatically as a RELATED connection. Check if you don't have them blocked in the firewall and if the FTP shim is even loaded. On Linux, it could be called ip_conntrack, nf_conntrack, nf_conntrack_ftp or nf_conntrack_proto_ftp depending on the version. It may be even compiled monolithically in which case you won't see it among the modules, but it will still work.

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